


the hallow bright

by aosc



Category: Final Fantasy Versus XIII, Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Ficlet Collection, Final Fantasy Versus XIII - Freeform, Multi, Religion of Etro - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 09:20:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10896357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aosc/pseuds/aosc
Summary: Faust: Who holds the devil, let him hold him well. He hardly will be caught a second time.Slice of life set in the Versus universe.





	the hallow bright

**Author's Note:**

> updated sporadically with gen, ship, any and all character-centric drabbles and ficlets set in the versus universe. draws upon head canon and on the myriad of "plot leaks" that've emerged during the years. bc, all aboard the trash train, destination: _all of the, dark, ominous angst scenarios._ (also yes this is tagged as promptis so expect main ship to be the chocobros to end all chocobros, but will be multiship as well. appropriate warnings will be given.)

* * *

 

As a child, the dark tapestry of Etro stares down at him, ever bringing with it a sense of foreboding – ominous things yet to be realized. Noctis tilts his head, leans it into his mother’s waist, and tightens his fingers in hers. “What’s it _mean_ ,” he says. The chalked out skull of the reaper that cradles the frame seems to consider him.

 

Aulea hums. She reaches out, adorned other hand stroking his hair backwards, revealing his face. “It is quite impossible to tell you of all that our Goddess has come to encompass, darling child. Etro takes on many shapes.”

 

The sweeps of blue in the tapestry stand out, chalky and pale and _old_ , against the gold of the frame. “There’s a _story_ ,” Noctis insists, “An that’s just one shape.”

 

“Indeed, there is a story,” Aulea assures him, “A grim such, of Her origins and Her purpose, which will make sense to you once you grow older. There is little point in it now. Someone so young shouldn’t burden himself with the enormity of what the afterlife and its implications entail.” Mother sinks to a nimble crouch. She puts a finger on Noctis’ chin, and steers his head gently in her direction. “Know that the Goddess is merciful, and omniscient. That once it is time, She will open the Unseen Gate, and She will aid your passing through it.”

 

Noctis nods. He knows this – he has read their family Cosmogony, though not all of it, and not very much. He reads well enough, but much of it is too hard, too much to grasp at. “If you can see the light on the sky, it means you’re gonna get _powers_.”

 

He’s remembered this one too many times – here, the memory fades out in a crackle of static, his mother’s face melting into the blackness of the void he enters whilst asleep. The chime of her bejeweled fingers silencing, and her reply – waiting as it is, drowns in the sharp intake of his own breath, as Noctis wakes up.

 

He is falling, and that’s how he wakes; tripping from an unknown ledge, traipsing forward into the depths of a personal abyss that always hurtles him back firmly into the present. He tangles in the threadbare sheets he still sleeps in, refusing to switch them out for newer ones, ones that do not precede his mother. He’s sweating with the remainders of the dream still fading, though it remains ever present in the slubs of his conscious, a childhood memory he’s filled out and colored in over the years. A repetition, always, of the very same scenario. Of the very same conversation.

 

He always remembers. Still, what lingers with most clarity is always Etro’s tapestry, eggshell blue robes and her serene face embroidered in a swim of blacks, maintained aloft by the guardian of The Goddess’ Kingdom.

 

*

 

Ignis narrows his eyes in concentration as he slaps away Noctis’s clumsy fingers at the final buttons of his shirt. “Allow me, Highness,” he says, hands immediately setting to buttoning him up.

 

“Leave the last one,” says Noctis.

 

“…Very well,” consents Ignis, though not without a certain lingering sense of apparent regret, as he steps back, critically eyeing the final, undone, button. He pushes his glasses up farther on the bridge of his nose. “All set. Are we ready?”

 

Reflected in the glassed, steel infused elevator they ride from Noctis’ quarters and up, toward the looming top of the Citadel, Insomnia’s contrasting incandescence illuminates the inky sky, otherwise perpetually dark and foreboding. Ignis doesn’t attempt to initiate a conversation, as he never does, an expert at gauging a party’s mood.

 

The sixty first floor is an arching display in foot wide blocks of black, thinly veined Accordo marble and austere, naked lightning arrangements. Crystal chandeliers hang dimly aglow in the ceilings, and spread across the floor are linen-clad, round tables, preset with trays of Lucian champagne and mixed plates of petite hors d'œuvres.

 

Ignis walks a tall step behind him, but mutters discreetly, at Noctis’ shoulder, tidbits of information on the attending guests that could turn out useful in a conversation, should he be caught by someone before he manages to reach his father.

 

“To your immediate left, by the window over there, is a close affiliation of the First Secretary Claustra. While not an immediate part of the Secretariat, she will no doubt want to be associated with it.”

 

Noctis nods shortly. “Wouldn’t do to upset the Altissians,” he murmurs.

 

Ignis hums. “The alliance shan’t depend on your turn of conversation with her, I should hope – but do take care. She is a talkative one, and you’d do best to tread cautiously with any of the attending. Remember, Highness, ours is a precarious political climate.”

 

“You don’t need to remind me, Ignis.”

 

“My job entails deciding what I need and needn’t remind you of, Noctis. In the former category, such things are predominantly included.”

 

Noctis shrugs a shoulder. “Fine,” he says, and, without waiting, makes a beeline for the closest tray of champagne, wishing to leave the conversation as it were.

 

The champagne fizzes pleasantly on his tongue, dissipating in a Gloria of effervesce, and Noctis takes care to savor it, not rush into it and down all of its contents at once. He looks up: overhead, the fireworks display has begun, and the floor is rapidly emptying, as people move towards the stairs twisting up into the glass-encased gazebo at the very top of the building. Left, Noctis notes, remains his father. For the time being, at least.

 

Regis’ hands are knotted into perfunctory fists in the low of his back. He stands poised, looking out through a window. As Noctis approaches, he gets the sense that usually worms its way into the back of his head: his father is expecting him.

 

“Noctis,” says Regis. He does not turn to greet him.

 

“Father,” replies Noctis. He moves as to stand side by side. “Lovely night. What’re you still doing down here?”

 

“Indeed, there is even a pepper of stars upon the sky to behold tonight. As for that, well, I suspected you would shortly be joining us. Clarus begets me upstairs, though I will be along with the crowd to enjoy the fireworks.” The King turns, and Noctis feels his heavy gaze upon himself. He watches the city easing out beneath them, burnished in the night, rather than reciprocating the movement to meet it. “You should take the opportunity to enjoy the company of the people who are here; many of them have traveled from faraway.”

 

“For the appetizers, or to get away from the Empire?” Noctis swallows the last of his champagne in one mouthful. “Ignis spotted two journalists making their way up the stairs who look suspiciously like the political refugee duo from Solheim who’ve been on the front page of every semi-large news outlet in the country for the past few weeks.”

 

Regis appears unperturbed by the turn of conversation. “They have been vilified for reporting on nothing but the truth. It is vital that we offer refuge to those in the need of it. I know it is a decision you support.”

 

Noctis shrugs, non-committal. “It’s unlike you to be so bold.”

 

He sees his father, in his periphery: erect statue, unbending as ever, as Regis moves to go. The fireworks, reflecting shimmering in a prism of color in the glass pane, are beginning to reach a crescendo. “It’s one whom Fortune favors,” replies Regis.

 

His palm briefly encloses Noctis’s shoulder, warm and large. Noctis fights the urge to grit his jaw. He looks his father in the eye, briefly making contact with the steely gaze that yields to no one, now calmly setting upon Noctis, “Come see the show, won’t you? It’s promised to be spectacular.”

 

Noctis shakes his head. “I’ll be fine from down here,” he says, “A little stuffed with people in the gazebo, for my tastes.”

 

Regis chuckles. A light, mirthless sound that smooths out of him. “Yes, perhaps it is. In that case, this should be a good opportunity for you to learn to know the faces of our neighboring nations. Many in attendance tonight are vital to the continued prosperity of our peace treaties and free trading agreements.”

 

“I’ll do my princely rounds,” Noctis replies, and means it as a quip, but hears it grow in his mouth, come out too large for his throat. He swallows around it, holds his ground. Regis says nothing of it – perhaps because they’ve grown far too estranged for that sort of intimacy to take place. Noctis isn’t sure. Isn’t sure that, in the greater span of things, it matters. It’s been long since he contemplated it being in any other way.

 

He watches his father make his way up the stairs, which roll upwards in lush, red carpeting. At the top, a party of three women linger, pale dresses and bejeweled throats. Behind his father loiters a guard detail, too familiar with the layout of the floor to appear overly concerned with losing sight of him. Noctis chances a glance over his shoulder, and sees Ignis sunk deep into the throes of some or other mind numbing conversation with a foreign correspondent with the Altissia Tribune, recording device and all shoved in Ignis’ face.

 

He turns to the window again, expecting the finale of the fireworks show to reach a grand conclusion. And it is – grand; cascades of deep colors explode across the sky, maroon and bright orange prickled with plum, fuchsia, streaked through with hot red. The fireworks spark out in bows and fire off in caricatures of cosmic stars exploding into sweeps of gas and dust. He tunes out the chime of crystal clinking off crystal, of the soothing murmur of quiet conversation. Of the off kilter click clack of stilettos against the hard flooring, in favor of losing himself to the otherworldly display outside.

 

It dies down, eventually. The final offset is of epic proportions, languidly stretching out over the sky in an array of colors you couldn’t possibly find on any color palate, lingering to the mute applause of those in attendance, only fading into the backdrop long after the show of appreciation has ended, and the guests have resumed talking to one another.

 

But there is something that does not die. Does not fade out.

 

Noctis peers out, narrowing his eyes as he looks out to see a streak of bright yellow remain hanging on the sky as though nailed there. It isn’t a star, and it isn’t a lone piece of firework that has been forgotten, lit long after the others.

 

He almost shivers with it. A sense of foreboding that traverses the length of him, burrows in the space in his gut in which nightmares bottom out. Becomes cold with the fading sense of how he wakes gasping, scratches raw welts down his throat with the sensation of his air supply cut off, buried at the bottom of a vastly endless black ocean.

 

He is inexorably drawn to it, despite the fact that he wants nothing to do with it. He looks towards Ignis, who meets his gaze briefly. Noctis indicates, subtly, the stairs, hoping that his keep mistakes it for him going after his father. He guesses, realistically, that Ignis won’t be so fooled, but the correspondent remains at large, talking through his own questions, and Noctis doubts he will be released any time soon.

 

The more guests he meets on the way up, who are currently descending, going back to the festivities of downstairs, the more the murmur of conversations he has no part in gathers in strength, joining up until it forms a discordant hum of voices at his back, almost becoming a buzz of noise that saws down his neck. The gazebo empties out before him, becomes a void in glass and guarded only by the lifeless deity in the midway through the crescent of the room.

 

The tapestry of Etro unfolds before him as he ascends the final steps. Its eggshell strikes of blue, permeating the Goddess herself, along with the faded gold embroideries of her shoulder pauldrons, and on the reaches of her helmet. The guardian’s skeletal hands, its chalked out skull beneath the fold of its hood. Noctis attempts to suppress the unease that settles in his stomach.

 

He doesn’t see her until she’s right there – petite shoulders and drawn waist, pale and dressed in all white. He knows her – of course he does. It’s just, easier to drop all pretenses if he doesn’t. Tenebrae is a sensitive topic, and even moreso on this eve.

 

He doesn’t know her name, but feels like something deep inside of him uproots, at the sight of her. At their gazes meeting. She tilts her head, the girl from Tenebrae, someone whom he has met in his dream, but hasn’t ever met before. The reveal of her smile, slow and serene, is – soothing.

 

“You can see the light too, can’t you – Prince Noctis?”

 

Noctis jolts awake.

 

* 

**Author's Note:**

> bc while i love n adore the finished xv product, its faults and its highlights and all, i fell in love with versus, and desperately want to explore the darker themes of that to be-story. this will deal heavily with head canons, as well as drawing on very dubious "plot leaks" as its main source of canonical entries (mainly [this](https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/932981-final-fantasy-xv/75309359)). some things will be retrieved from the xv 'verse, as well as the other entries in the fabula nova-series, for (nerd) lore reasons.


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